That time a song got stuck on repeat… but not in my head
I recently wrote an article on earworms:
Some of the memorable ones that have gotten stuck in my head over the years.
Today, we’re going to talk about songs that were playing over and over again, not in our head, but out in the wild.
Here a few that have happened to me at various times in my life – and one that happened to someone else.
“Baa Baa Black Sheep”
One fine summer day, my sister Elise was visiting from New York, and we were headed into the city to hang out at Millennium Park, along with my sister MB and her daughter Hannah, who would have been around one or so. Hannah did not do well on car rides, and true to form started screaming as we drove back home.
Marybeth handed me a Raffi CD and told me to play “Baa Baa Black Sheep”, which would hopefully calm her down.
She didn’t calm down, at least not completely, but it was somewhat better, so I kept the song on repeat. After about the 10th time hearing it, I was ready to drive off the road just to make it stop. MB kept saying, “Oh you don’t have to keep playing it. It’s OK.”
It was not okay and we all knew what would happen if that song didn’t keep playing. To this day, I resent Raffi deeply. Sure, we played his CDs for my daughter, but never that song. Never.
“The Entertainer”
For a brief time in the 70s, my dad’s car…
(maybe an Oldsmobile Toronado)
…became a mobile easy listening hellscape when an 8-track cassette got stuck in the tape player, and the only option for music was an elevator-esque version of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer”.
On repeat.
Admittedly, there is not much to this story, but there are some fun 70s references, so I included it.
“If I Had a Million Dollars”
Our friends Noel and Andrea invited us over to their house for dinner and when we walked in, the song “If I Had a Million Dollars” by Barenaked Ladies was playing on the stereo.
“Oh I like that song. It’s pretty funny,” I commented.
It was no longer funny when it played for the entire night on repeat, though no one had set it up to do so, or figured out how to get it to stop. We eventually left that room, but anytime we passed by it, the song was still playing. Why somebody didn’t just shut it off is still a mystery.
“Sister Christian”
Coming back from a trip to the city about a decade ago, my daughter and I got off the highway and stopped to get something to eat at a Gyros place we liked. We ordered our food and sat down to eat and I noticed that “Sister Christian” by Night Ranger was playing overhead.
When the song was over, for some reason it started back up again, but just played about the last minute or so of the song. It kept doing this the whole time we were there. I thought about saying something when we were leaving, but it was no longer my problem, so I didn’t bother.
“Afternoon Delight”
I lived in the dorm on a music-interest floor the entire time I was at university. For reasons unknown, one day a couple of guys locked themselves in their room and blasted the song “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band over and over again, singing along loudly and off key.
This went on for at least a good hour, much to the consternation of the rest of us on the floor.
At one point, a guy down the hall came out of his room exasperated and began slamming his body into the door of their room, screaming expletives at them. If he had somehow thought he would be able to break the door down, he must have forgotten that we were music majors and not capable of such a thing.
“Smokin’”
Was listening to a classic rock station called The River one day, and the song “Smokin’” by Boston was playing. Then it played again. And again, with no explanation.
I happen to really like that song, and I listened to it about five times before I decided that I was good and changed the station.
I never did find out for sure what was behind the repeat playing of that particular song or how long it lasted.
But perhaps it was in response to the impending statewide smoking ban.
“YWA (Yuppie with Attitude)”
Back in the early 90s, I was in the car with my sister Patty and her two sons. The younger one was around five and was obsessed with this song off of a cassette by 17th Avenue All Stars, an a capella group out of Denver.
He kept demanding for it to be played over and over again. He particularly liked a line about pasta salad that I do not recall, and would rap along with it.
There was also something about racquetball in there.
I don’t know how many times we had to listen to it, but it took up the entire time we were driving to wherever we were going.
We could not find the lyrics online, or a link to a recording to post here. Who would have thought a song called “Yuppie with Attitude” would not have left behind a very large cultural footprint in 2025?
“Whip It”
My sister bought this Devo hit on 45 when it came out and one night in particular played it non-stop for what seemed to be hours. She had a friend over and I have a faint recollection that they may have been working on a dance routine to it, for their own amusement. I was downstairs and unable to escape it and initially found it very annoying.
Then something happened at some point during the night after hearing it for the umpteenth time.
I realized I loved the song.
I became hooked on it, maybe even more than she was. At school, I would shout “Crack that whip!” during gym class when we had swimming. The pool had great acoustics for that. I was also known to break it out at random times throughout the day.
To this day, I love the song dearly and would easily put it in my top ten from the 80s.
“It’s a Small World”
Not my story, but the deacon from our church gave a homily about a year ago that began with him recalling a trip to Disney he took with his family back in the day.
They were on the It’s a Small World ride when there was a malfunction and they were stuck on it for about an hour.
The “It’s a Small World” song was playing the entire time on loop. As upsetting as that was, he managed to reflect on the song that he had to hear ad nauseum and offer spiritual thoughts to us regarding its message.
I give him credit. If it were me, I would have lasted all of five minutes before frantically attempting to disembark the ride.
And likely getting ejected from the park.
No lesson learned.
So, do any of you have a story or two about a time when you were stuck hearing a song over and over again?
It’s okay. Let it all out. We’re here for you.
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Nice subject. Is there an element of cathartic release to writing this all down?
I can think of two examples. First was going to my uncle’s house, I can place it in time due to the song as 1994. My two cousins who would have been around 11 – 13 were there with some of their friends. They were listening to The Outhere Brothers; Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle) on cassette. The OBs were a lame American rap duo who i believe were almost entirely anonymous in their homeland but briefly inexplicably huge here. We were there maybe an hour which they spent listening to that one song on repeat, rewinding it and starting again. Sometimes listening to a verse or the chorus and going back again. Sometimes providing their own vocals. An already terrible song was taken to new depths.
The other I think I wrote about before on a road trip round Europe with a friend. It was his car, he drove and I navigated and I supplied an extensive range of CDs. He only wanted to listen to one: The Best Of The Pogues. Specifically he wanted to listen to Fairytale Of New York. A Christmas song in July. Everytime we got in the car, the CD would go in and he’d skip to that track, then go back to track 1 and play it through, including Fairytale again, and on getting to the end of the CD he’d go back to it. It wasn’t stuck on repeat but over two weeks there was a lot of driving so it got played a lot. I love The Pogues but it took several years before I chose to listen to them again.
It’s mostly for fun, but yes, it’s good to let it all out, JJ. I love your examples, especially that rap group from the U.S. that nobody knows here that somehow was fire in the U.K. That fact alone just sounds dubious. I’m sorry that happened to you, and in the broader sense, your country.
38 seconds of Steven Wright. It’s the 2nd joke that your article reminded me of.
https://youtube.com/shorts/y_IQCx3Iv9c?si=eB_eis_B9vIaEkqy
Nicely done.
Tom in the adjacent cube tells the story of how he and his roommate in college both left for the weekend. Before leaving they turned up their stereo, put the song “Lemon” by U2 on repeat, locked the door and left. He said it was still playing when they returned. No consequences, except a funny story.
That is great. That’s one of their worst songs. I am surprised that there wasn’t any blowback from anyone.
My oldest daughter will listen to a song on repeat for hours on end. I rarely listen to a song more than twice.
I do remember buying one single as a kid and playing it 14 times in a row after getting home. “Boy from New York City” by the Manhattan Transfer. No shame.
There is a possibly apocryphal story about revenge on a bad neighbor in an apartment building.
Back in the days of editing on audio magnetic tape, a guy spliced a loop of the ending of a popular CSNY song. He set up the reel-to reel tape deck with a speaker right up against the wall, and left for the weekend.
Through the miracle of modern digital audio, we can recreate. Imagine hearing this for 48 hours:
https://tnocs.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/dododo.mp3
I can only think of this happening once, and it was the doing of me and my sister. We were ten or twelve and visiting my parent’s friends. They had a cabin on Eagle Lake in northern Maine, and they had a player piano. We were fascinated by it.
They had many piano rolls and we played a lot of them but really loved “Alley Cat.” During that long weekend, we played it over and over and over again. I’m pretty sure we drove the adults crazy.
https://youtu.be/qbklsSAW-f0?si=Q5FpAR0FKgtI0TEe